The Hindu : National : Partner rural development efforts, Abdul Kalam tells World Bank

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Tuesday, Jun 22, 2004

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National

Partner rural development efforts, Abdul Kalam tells World Bank

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JUNE 21. The President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, today asked the World Bank to become a partner in enabling non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the corporate sector to undertake development of viable clusters of villages for their sustainable development in a big way.

Speaking at a World Bank-organised function, India Country-level Development Marketplace, here, Mr. Kalam said the outlay of this participative endeavour would involve $20 to $40 millions for each cluster. Such investment, besides providing urban amenities in rural areas, would also become a sustainable business proposition.

The President said that nearly 700 million people of the country lived in rural areas in 600,000 villages and rural prosperity depended upon building up both "content'' and "connectivity'' simultaneously. "Connectivity of village complexes providing economic opportunities to all segments of the people is an urgent need to empower the rural sector.

The essential needs of the villages today are water, power, road, sanitation, healthcare, education, transportation, communication and other services needed for sustainable entrepreneurship and quality of life.

The integrated methods, which will bring prosperity to rural India are physical connectivity of village clusters through quality roads and transport, electronic connectivity through telecommunications, knowledge connectivity through education, vocational training for farmers, artisans and crafts persons and entrepreneurship programmes and economic connectivity through starting of enterprises with the help of banks, micro-credit and marketing of products,'' he said.

Suggesting that the next two decades were a period of accelerated economic development of India, he said science and technology and economic planning would have to contribute continuously for undertaking various missions.

Every Indian scientist, technologist, economist and planner should ask "what can I do for the prosperity of 700 million people living in 600,000 villages?'' International organisations could also definitely use experiences that would be gained in India to be utilised in other parts of the world, he added.

Mr. Kalam urged the World Bank to invest more time and effort in making sure that the knowledge that the Bank had accumulated reached every needy Indian, particularly those in the rural areas. "Rural India should go next time to the Bank not to borrow money but to borrow knowledge,'' he said.

He appreciated the World Bank for the initiative in calling for proposals from over 1,500 NGOs in India for rural development programmes, which might pave the way in choices of multiple routes towards rural development.

Echoing similar sentiments, World Bank officials said India could achieve real development only by empowering the poor and by mobilising grassroots-level support for development.

"Poor people should have a voice in policy-making. They should be empowered to monitor and then only there would be true development,'' the World Bank Vice-President for South Asia Region, Praful C. Patel, said. The Bank, he said, would promote innovative services in rural areas to give a boost to the poverty-alleviation programmes.

"We are in a dilemma. Though we fund large-scale projects, we have noticed that the real action lies at the grassroots level,'' the World Bank Country Director, Michael F. Carter, said.

Pointing out that success in development depended only on community mobilisation, Mr. Carter said the Bank would now focus on bridging the gap between local and large-scale development.

The Bank and its partners would support implementation of the various innovative ideas evolved by the winners of the Development Marketplace, he added.

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